Southern Lab receives grant for financial literacy software

Southern University Laboratory School recently received a grant for the award-winning financial software EverFi, the leading education technology platform to teach, assess, and certify students in critical skills such as Financial Literacy, Student Loan Manage­ment, Digital Literacy, and Substance Abuse.

The web-based program is designed to help students make smart financial choices and become financially literate.

“This program uses the latest media tools such as 3-D gaming, twitter-like messaging tools, animations, video and other technologies to capture and maintain the interest of young people today,” said Southern Lab instructor Kenettra Curry.

“Today’s students want to be involved in hands-on activities with their education,” added Curry. “Southern Lab is always looking for new ways to capture the students’ attention and get them interested in learning.”

The school will integrate the program into their curriculum in October. It will cover 600 topics such as banking, credit scores, savings, credit cards, taxes, insurance, payment, consumer fraud, interest rates, renting versus owning, investing, 401k’s and other critical concepts.

Students will experience a virtual encounter dealing with real-life aspects such as the New York Stock Exchange and more. All students will be required to take this course before graduating and will be able to access EverFi after the course is completed.

Students will also be able to access the college version of EverFi once they have entered an institution of higher learning and the school’s parents will also be able to assess the software to assist them with their family budgets.

“The goal is to equip our students with tools necessary for financial success,” said School Director Dr. Ronnie Harrison. “We are ac­tively searching for outside sources such as EverFi, The Greater Baton Rouge Foundation and others that are interested in sharing innovative ideas with ‘The Lab’ to help prepare our students for academic success.”

The Credit Bureau of Greater Baton Rouge Foundation assisted the Lab School in securing the grant.

EverFi is used in over 3,000 schools in all 50 states, universities such as Harvard, Duke, Oxford, and Princeton and is backed by leading financial associations.

This article was originally published in the October 10, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper